Overview
- On Tuesday Microsoft quietly added new Surface Pro 12‑inch and Surface Laptop 13‑inch configurations with 8GB of RAM, 256GB storage and the older Snapdragon X Plus chip priced at $849 and $949 respectively.
- Those 8GB SKUs do not meet Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC requirement of 16GB RAM, so they lack Copilot+ features such as Recall and Click To Do.
- Microsoft says it will keep 16GB models on sale and is working to reduce Windows 11’s memory footprint and limit background pre‑launch behavior to improve performance on lower‑RAM devices.
- Reviewers warn that 8GB on Windows limits multitasking, browser tabs and future‑proofing for users who run heavy apps, while Microsoft pitches the models for light everyday tasks.
- Retailers have simultaneously discounted higher‑spec Copilot+ Surfaces by large amounts, creating wide price spreads that give buyers alternate paths to 16GB Copilot+ machines even as component shortages push baseline RAM down.